Amazon RDS vs MySQL comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.4, while Oracle is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.1% mindshare in SQL, compared to Oracle’s 5.7% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Amazon RDS

Read 58 Amazon RDS reviews

4,001 Views
840 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

MySQL

Read 152 MySQL reviews

9,424 Views
4,241 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

MySQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon RDS and MySQL based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Relational Databases Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon RDS vs. MySQL Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. MySQL

March 2026

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Helped 885,311 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

2.6

Organizations benefit financially from Amazon RDS's cost-effectiveness, agility, and scalability, despite varying results and AWS expense concerns.

Sentiment score

6.2

MySQL offers cost benefits with open-source use, achieving up to 60% ROI, despite challenges in precise financial calculations.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

I have seen a return on investment with MySQL, as it allows us to manage with fewer employees, focusing on business logic rather than database management.

AmitVerma4

Software Developer at 8 Gallery India

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.8

Amazon RDS support varies by level and location; premium is efficient, but US standard support often lacks expertise.

Sentiment score

6.8

MySQL users primarily rely on community resources for support, with official Oracle support noted as costly but effective.

The documentation is quite good.

Kenan Çiftçi

Corporate Database Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

The official AWS technical support for Amazon RDS is helpful, providing 24/7 assistance for all business support cases with tools such as the health dashboard and AWS trusted advisor.

Baqir Sajjad

AWS Architect at Virtual University

I would rate the support from AWS very high, maybe nine, but it also depends on what kind of support you have signed in your contract, whether the premium support or the standard support.

reviewer2592669

Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

I would rate the documentation and online support a 10 out of 10.

reviewer2599590

Student at a university with 10,001+ employees

We have no issues and usually receive timely responses.

Muzzamil Hussain

Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Amazon RDS is praised for its scalability and reliability, though some express minor concerns with large dataset management.

Sentiment score

6.7

MySQL scalability depends on the specific environment, with challenges arising in larger applications and benefits from cloud solutions.

Its automated scaling, both in storage and instances, is vital as it eliminates manual interventions.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

The installation of Amazon RDS is quite easy and quite scalable.

reviewer2592669

Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Despite being a strong feature, scalability could be improved due to the lack of full functionality in autoscaling.

reviewer2668191

VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

Meeting scalability requirements through cloud computing is an expensive affair.

Ravi Kant-Sharma

Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

MySQL's scalability is currently adequate, as we have increased operations from ten thousand to twelve thousand devices, and it is working fine for us.

AmitVerma4

Software Developer at 8 Gallery India

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Amazon RDS is praised for reliability, performance, and uptime with minimal issues, especially with Multi-AZ enhancing stability.

Sentiment score

7.7

MySQL is generally stable and reliable but faces issues with large data operations and server overload, needing regular maintenance.

Amazon RDS is very stable when deployed correctly across different zones with the right configurations.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

It is a stable product overall, with very few issues.

reviewer2668191

VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Amazon RDS is quite stable, and the SLAs are sort of 99.98%.

reviewer2592669

Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar.

Muzzamil Hussain

Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan

From my experience, MySQL was pretty stable.

reviewer2599590

Student at a university with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Room For Improvement

Amazon RDS users seek improvements in security, documentation, scalability, integration, and support, with enhanced customization and cost reduction.

MySQL needs improved scalability, performance, integration, replication, user interface, security, monitoring tools, documentation, backup, and clustering.

Simplifying migration for those transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

Having native Change Data Capture (CDC) support would be beneficial, allowing for seamless integration with Kafka without relying on external technologies like Debezium.

reviewer2668191

VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Enabling performance insights to view query formats where the bottlenecks occur, identifying the fixes, slow queries, and missing indexes.

Baqir Sajjad

AWS Architect at Virtual University

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

It could be more beneficial if MySQL can enhance its data masking functionality in the same way it has improved data encryption.

Muzzamil Hussain

Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan

Oracle could improve on scalability.

Ravi Kant-Sharma

Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation.

Prabir Kumar Kundu

SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Setup Cost

Amazon RDS pricing is usage-dependent and cost-effective, offering savings on admin costs but can be expensive compared to alternatives.

MySQL's free community edition is popular, while the paid Enterprise edition offers advanced features and lower costs than competitors.

While Azure provides great services, long-term plans on AWS are 20% to 30% cheaper.

Karthikeyan Katkam

AWS Engineer at Neurolov.ai

I find the pricing of Amazon RDS fair, as AWS operates on a pay-for-what-you-use model.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

I rate the price for Amazon as eight on a scale from one to ten.

Kenan Çiftçi

Corporate Database Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

Oracle has different components, so if you need security, you have to procure a different license, but here everything is inbuilt and it's not costly.

Prabir Kumar Kundu

SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Valuable Features

Amazon RDS provides scalability, security, and flexibility with multi-engine support and simplified operations for diverse applications.

MySQL offers fast performance, open-source adaptability, reliability, scalability, and excels in web applications with strong community support.

Amazon RDS provides data encryption using services like KMS, crucial for securing high-sensitive data and meeting compliance requirements such as HIPAA or PCI DSS.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

Database management is effective in Amazon RDS because it offers automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and support from multiple database engineers, while also providing security, monitoring and metrics, scalability.

Baqir Sajjad

AWS Architect at Virtual University

In some cases, we are using the read replica feature, and it does improve our application performance because we do not allow any downstream system to come to the main storage or main databases and perform a query.

reviewer2592669

Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment.

Muzzamil Hussain

Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan

The main feature we utilize in MySQL is the view, and I can say that it is the most valuable feature for our needs.

AmitVerma4

Software Developer at 8 Gallery India

It allows programming, writing stored procedures, creating views, constraints, and triggers easily.

Ravi Kant-Sharma

Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the MySQL report

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (2nd)

MySQL

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

152

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 5.7%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
MySQL	5.7%
Amazon RDS	1.1%
Other	93.2%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Baqir Sajjad

AWS Architect at Virtual University

Customer support and automated backups offer reliability while ease of deployment enhances user experience

The features of Amazon RDS that I have found most valuable include web and mobile applications, enterprise applications, data warehousing and analytics, and software as a service platforms, along with dev testing environments, disaster recoveries, and backups. The mobile app backend and development environment is also the best feature for database management for my customers. Database management is effective in Amazon RDS because it offers automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and support from multiple database engineers, while also providing security, monitoring and metrics, scalability. We are using snapshots and database migrations as well as performance optimization. The impact of Amazon RDS scalability and backup has been positive, with good vertical scaling, scale up and down, horizontal scaling, and storage scaling. The performance was good and availability helped with reducing downtime.

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Prabir Kumar Kundu

SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd

Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities

Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	75
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	61

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon RDS?

The product's installation phase is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon RDS?

The pricing for Amazon RDS is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?

Currently, I cannot think of any major improvements. Perhaps more platforms in terms of database engine versions would be beneficial. Right now, Amazon RDS supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, but there ...

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Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?

MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...

See all answers

Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?

I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...

See all answers

What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?

One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...

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Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 17% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Amazon RDS

Compared 11% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 8% of the time

Yugabyte Cloud vs Amazon RDS

Compared 7% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Firebird SQL vs MySQL

Compared 20% of the time

PostgreSQL vs MySQL

Compared 8% of the time

MariaDB vs MySQL

Compared 5% of the time

SQL Server vs MySQL

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Database vs MySQL

Compared 5% of the time

More MySQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

March 2026

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

MySQL

March 2026

Download MySQL product report

Also Known As

RDS

No data available

Overview

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient, resizeable capacity for an industry-standard relational database and manages common database administration tasks.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

MySQL is an open-source database known for its ease of use and high performance. It offers features like replication and clustering, making it ideal for diverse applications. Its cost-effectiveness and LAMP integration are key advantages for businesses.

MySQL supports a variety of languages and platforms, providing reliable, scalable data management. Its graphical interface and LAMP architecture integration enhance its usability, while community support further strengthens its appeal. Challenges include scalability issues with large databases, lack of advanced clustering, and limited high-availability features. Complex queries may affect performance, and integration can pose difficulties. The outdated interface and insufficient documentation are also concerns, along with replication and backup reliability issues.

What are MySQL's key features?

Open-source nature: Freely available and customizable.
Cross-platform compatibility: Supports multiple operating systems.
Scalability: Capable of handling large volumes of data.
Replication and clustering: Ensure data redundancy and load balancing.
Full-text search: Provides powerful search capabilities.
LAMP integration: Seamlessly integrates with Linux, Apache, and PHP.

What benefits should users consider?

Cost-effectiveness: Reduces expenses due to its open-source nature.
High performance: Efficiently processes large volumes of data.
Active community support: Access to a wide range of resources and expertise.
Versatile use cases: Suitable for varied applications including web development and IoT.

MySQL is widely implemented in industries such as web development, e-commerce, and finance. It's used for managing dynamic websites, powering e-commerce platforms, and supporting financial applications. Its compatibility with PHP and cost-effectiveness make it suitable for CMS platforms like WordPress. With cloud services integration, MySQL is a backend choice for scalable applications in various sectors.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Edmodo

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. MySQL

March 2026

Free Report: Amazon RDS vs. MySQL

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon RDS vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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